Chess Olympiad: Mega-report from R1 & R2

Recap

If you want to catch up to the action before team pairings were out for Round 1...click here.

Fixed board orders have no restriction on the Elo ratings, so team captains take into consideration current form, level of activity, preference for with white vs black. This naturally leads to some mental gymnastics that see higher rated players starting on lower boards. Surprisingly, this is the case for Arjun Erigaisi, the world’s 4th highest rated player, listed as third on India’s list. Other “out of order” surprises are all listed on board 4: Mamedyarov for Azerbaijan, Jobava for Georgia, and Bologan for Moldova.

Due to the lopsided pairing, it was expected for most heavy hitters to stay out of the lineup. When board pairings for round 1 were finally published at the 10 am deadline, you could have made an All-Star team of 2700+ players who were resting: Magnus Carlsen, Fabiano Caruana, Gukesh, Vincent Keymer, Maxime Vachier-Lagrave.

Strolling through the streets of Budapest, you frequently run into chess players nowadays. Some of them are proudly wearing their national team’s colors and are easily identifiable, while others prefer a bit more stealth during their morning walk. As we get closer and closer to the beginning of the round, the festive atmosphere of the Opening Ceremony turns into a more reserved anticipation, with players trying to extract any sort of edge in their preparation. In the meantime, there is a FIDE Arbiters’ Seminar happening in the playing hall each morning, so some arbiters end up doing double duty amounting to a full 10-12 hours of work. The grind for the FA or IA title is a serious business, and one of these seminars is required.

Logistics

Access to the media center is granted every day from 1 pm onwards, which is 2 hours before the games are scheduled to begin

Since this is my first time covering the Olympiad, I am still trying to find some shortcuts that make life easier. I won’t divulge all the secrets here, but you can imagine arriving earlier is useful, as you avoid the queue and can painlessly navigate the labyrinth that is playing hall. Clearly, this memo was lost during Day 1. We had a rather unexpected 20-minute delay at the start of the round, and some delegations arriving later than that. It appears that logistical issues with buses leaving from the official hotels are to be blamed. In any case, as a PSA to players, you have easy access to most places in Budapest using the extensive network of buses and metro lines. It is my 7th time in this city, and can confidently say its public transportation is the best I’ve used in any major city of Europe.

Chief Arbiter IA Ivan Syrovy with FIDE President Arkady Dvorkovich. Photo by Maria Emelianova/FIDE

At 3:20 pm, facing the deafening silence of 1500 players who had been sitting for 20 minutes, IA Ivan Syrovy instructs them all to start their clocks

Some teams are still rushing in, such as UAE, facing Georgia in the women’s section. The accredited photographers and videographers are jockeying for position around the top matches, to get a proper angle. ChessBase India is working tirelessly to provide coverage with its crew, while FIDE’s official team is getting swallowed by the multitude of green jerseys, and the Chess Olympiad 2024 is on!

Results

While being outrated by an average of more than 400 points, any match upsets would go against the grain

Some teams don’t even have players with a FIDE rating, so they start at a clear disadvantage...Cue in team Vanuatu, defying all odds and winning the last match in the Open section against the DR Congo by the narrowest of margins 2.5 – 1.5. A remarkable achievement for one of the newest federations from Oceania, fielding 4 unrated players against a team that contains 2 FMs.

Individual upsets are far more likely, and we’ve had our fair share of them already starting from Day 1

Former members of the 2800-club, Levon Aronian and Shakhriyar Mamedyarov started with huge scares against the lower rated Andre Mendez Machado of Panama and Anas Khwaira of Jordan, respectively. Aronian found himself down a clean piece after overlooking a tactical detail in an uncommon middlegame position, while Mamedyarov’s draw is a testament to his 800-point rating difference, rather than following the course of the game. Eventually, Aronian swindled the game and escaped with a full point. Later on, he would half-jokingly quip that getting blunders out of the way early is preferable.

Full upsets were scored by FM Ahmed Alrehaily (Saudi Arabia) against GM Bobby Cheng (Australia), who went for a dubious early queen sac. GM Helgi Dam Ziska (Faroe Islands) lost on time in a winning position against Nathaniel Mathurin (St. Lucia). GM Gudmundur Kjartansson blundered tactically against Spanish junior FM Xavier Mompel Ferruz, now representing Equatorial Guinea.

Sabrina Vega and Marta Garcia, team Spain. Photo by Maria Emelianova/FIDE.

In the Women’s section, things were far more peaceful, as far as upsets go. A total of 18 teams started with a pristine 4-0 score, while after Day 2, only 6 remain standing with 8/8: Poland, China, Spain, Armenia, Argentina, Iran. In the Open section, the top favorites have already started bleeding points. Norway made a shocking draw against Canada, which might even see Magnus not playing for a third consecutive day, as they face much lower seeded Colombia. After two days, there are only three teams with a perfect 8/8 points on all 4 boards: India, Slovenia, Georgia. Day 3 looks exciting, as we’ll get the first share of “full GM” matches on the top boards. Stay tuned to find out more, straight from the playing hall, where I am tip-toeing every day to bring you the best stories